Count
by lokogato-sama
Summary: 6. There are moments when everything degenerates into the bizarre, and even Neji can’t tell where reality is. [SasuNeji, NaruNeji, implied NaruSasu] [Livejournal 30kisses challenge]
1. Count

Loko: This is in response to the 30kisses challenge over at (The URL should work, I think.) Will be multi-part eventually.

Disclaimer: Soooo not mine it's tragic.

Summary: Neji's looking, and Sasuke's not. SasuNeji, NaruNeji, implied SasuNaru­.

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Count

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It was unexpected. That much could be said.

Sasuke had frozen onto a limb and performed as rapid a genjutsu as he could manage, thinking as strongly as possible _don't look over here, don't look over here, I'm uninteresting, don't look don't look don't look._

It was Neji, so Neji had looked.

Byakugan had spawned Sharingan, after all.

Sasuke had leapt: touch one branch, touch another, touch, touch, onetwothree count.

Neji had caught up, and remembered later to realise that catching up to _Uchiha Sasuke_ was an unusual thing. At the time, though, he'd barely spoken, just:

"I thought you might have been involved."

It hadn't been as messy as some of the other incidents in which the Otonin had been involved – usually a roomful of gore, at least, marked the renegades hidden in sound. The alliance of nations hadn't even been quite able to detect whether it was Akatsuki or Otonin until the akatsuki had denied involvement. Which was also unusual. Most everything involving this mission had been unusual, and so –

"All this was your doing, then."

Neji doesn't ask questions. He sees answers and then twists them any way he likes.

Sasuke doesn't ask questions. He destroys them before they can reach his lips.

They've kept pace for a while since then, and Sasuke remembers later to realise that _Hyuuga Neji_ not attacking as soon as possible was an unusual thing. At the time, though, he only says:

"Naruto got to you."

His mouth forms around the name eagerly, something it hasn't tasted in almost a year, something like sunlight, and yet Sasuke knows Naruto better than to just think that. It's disrespectful to that memory to just think _sunshine_ and have done with it, so Sasuke does with that memory what he does with most he can't escape: ignores it.

"Yes," Neji acknowledges, and finally stops.

Sasuke skids and turns, one smooth halt, on the branch ahead. They stare at each other.

"You know," Neji says suddenly. "I may be cadet, but Uchiha is only an offshoot branch, not even cadet."

Sasuke nods. His family is not the oldest or the most powerful, but the Sharingan has surpassed the Byakugan in practicality already, and they both know it.

"Magenkyou," Neji says, and Sasuke starts.

"What?"

"Ma – gen – kyou," Neji enunciates. "Did you get that, yet?"

"Why would I tell you?" Sasuke says softly, hands slipping toward his kunai.

"That is a point," Neji nods. "You didn't kill Naruto."

"No," Sasuke says. "Obviously."

Even Magenkyou couldn't keep an illusion like that up so long. And Sasuke didn't get the Magenkyou. He _couldn't _kill Naruto – that was why. Neji slides carefully into Jyuuken position, the gentle swaying stance with the welcoming arms as if offering an embrace. Sasuke sees his opportunity and his eyes begin to fog red, although Neji hasn't yet summoned his kekkei genkai.

"No," Neji agrees. "You couldn't."

Sasuke closes his hand on his kunai.

"I have him," Neji says very quietly. "Do you understand?"

Sasuke colours, understanding and _not caring not caring not._ "Why do you think it matters to me?"

"It does," Neji says firmly.

"It does not," Sasuke says, calling into mind the image of his brother, painting with sure strokes the paleness of the face, deep lined teenager's face, and the eyes exactly like his own. It's easy, easier than picturing Naruto, whose face is too nuanced for Sasuke's artistry. "I congratulate you and wish you luck, former comrade."

"I," Neji pauses, and for a moment there is a stiffness to a stance that should be as fluid as a mother's rocking arms. "Have no luck."

Sasuke looks confused, although his crimsoned eyes read no emotion – not even Byakugan can understand what lies behind the swirling mirror-wheel eyes.

"He thinks we are alike, you and I."

"He thinks?" Sasuke says, childishly, and regrets it instantly. Neji's face frowns, naturally as expressionless as the Sharingan makes Sasuke, and his body relaxes back into threat.

"We are identical," Neji clarifies, and without any warning switches to Byakugan and attacks: "Hakke Rokujuyon Sho," He speaks decorously, almost politely, unlike other ninja who decry their attacks at the top of their lungs.

Sasuke has learned to watch and does, although not without penalty, despite his flying kunai dodging each other and clanging against themselves to aim back at their target's weak spot, but both he and Neji see and understand that they count at the same time:

"Ichi. Ni. San. Shi."

There is a moment between sixty (on target), sixty-two (not) and sixty-three (not, Sasuke's gotten better already) when both kekkei genkai lose focus and flicker off and suddenly they're standing there, still slightly off-balance from the forward-leaning technique, and Neji's standing slightly above Sasuke, who's crouched on the ground with kunai raised.

Neji leans forward, very carefully, as if afraid one or the other of them will break, and plucks the kunai out of Sasuke's motionless hand, and his dark hair slips forward and screens them both. Dark strands mingle against Sasuke's cheeks until they can't be separated, and Neji kisses Sasuke, and Sasuke kisses back.

When Neji returns, he says he fought one of the Otonin, but his opponent got away.

Naruto doesn't quite understand why Neji tastes like woodsmoke, but there are a few words and it's all explained away, like everything else in their relationship.

Between Sasuke and Neji, there are no illusions.

---

words: 891

:bows: Feedback would be appreciated. Arigato, minna-sama.

Loko


	2. Secret

Loko: The second in the series of 30kisses (the famous LJ challenge). As I am stupid and thought the URL would work in full form last time, which it didn't, here is the full URL: www . livejournal . com / users / 30kisses (just take out the spaces).

Disclaimer: Still not mine. Double-checked to be safe, and – nope.

Summary: Neji's engaging in dangerous activity, and Sasuke doesn't care. SasuNeji, NaruNeji, implied NaruSasu

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Secret

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At first it's just Neji, sitting on the ground in a training field too close to Konoha for any sort of danger. (Naruto's insistence.)

There is a single blink of the white eyes, and then there is Neji and there is Sasuke, standing on the ground in a training field too close to Konoha for any sort of safety. (Naruto trusts too much.)

They stare at each other, a long, long second stretched out by nothing but will.

Sasuke sits, carefully mimicking Neji's posture exactly: meditation, legs crossed at perfect angles and hands relaxed and flat against knees. In the dusk, they are silhouetted like imperfect reflections.

"You stole Jyuuken," Neji says.

"No," Sasuke says. "Sharingan can imitate everything but other kekkei genkai."

"You were watching," Neji says. Sasuke inclines his head very slightly, eyes still locked with Neji's, a battle of black and white.

"I can treat it as taijutsu," He says.

"I see," Neji says. "Like you did to Lee."

"Yes," Sasuke says, and there is an awkward moment when both of them flex their hands carefully, conscious of how defenseless they both are. Any movement by one can be instantly seen by the other, bloodlines or no. There is a cautious truce, and both of them have information for it.

"This is very close to Konoha," Neji says after a pause.

"I understand that," Sasuke says, somewhat angry. "I grew up here, after all."

"You trained in the Uchiha grounds," Neji reminds Sasuke. There is a moment when his white eyes slide imperceptibly to consider Sasuke's lips, as pale as ever – no garish purple snake lipstick – and considers seven days between them and now and the basic impossibility of time.

"No more than you in Hyuuga grounds," Sasuke says. "Cadet grounds."

Neji bows this time: concession to concession.

"Orochimaru will attack at dawn," Sasuke says suddenly, and it is a peace offering. He's given Konoha one night, a mark of trust in one master and a mark of loyalty to another.

"ANBU has found a living trail to the current Otonin location," Neji says, and regrets not having a more concise phrasing. Actually, ANBU is on its way to the current Otonin location, but he trusts Sasuke's skills.

"I see," Sasuke says, and makes to stand. Neji's hand is suddenly fisted in Sasuke's shirt, and they are eye-to-eye, although Neji is usually taller and Sasuke is usually more intense.

"Why did you leave?" He asks.

"You shouldn't have to ask," Sasuke sneers, a practiced expression on the young face.

"There is power in Konoha," Neji retorts. "There is power, and there is hurt, and you have added to one and detracted from the other." Insignificant ripples in the greater flow of the forest, but neither acknowledges this fact.

"There is a wall in Konoha," Sasuke says, and he _has _practiced this speech, has recited it over and over, each sentence next to a name beginning with _Uchiha_. "There is a wall against power, and there is a wall against kekkei genkai, and I am the last and they seek to hold me back."

"Some would only hold you," Neji says softly, something tender like pain shaping his eyes. "One would only hold you. You put a hole through his chest and he is still looking for you."

Sasuke breaks the staring contest, finding the ground intensely interesting. "That sort of thing only holds me back."

Neji kisses him: hard and hungry, painful and biting. There is no golden-orange wistful aftertaste of Naruto, only Neji harsh and blank and clean.

Sasuke likes it. There is nothing to consider.

"We are in danger," He says when they part, barely breathless. Voices filter faintly through the forest, confirming his words.

Neji steps back. "Konoha will always welcome you," He says, barely bitter. Neither looks at the other.

Sasuke is gone by the time a group of former cells sail into the clearing, shouting hellos and in some cases already sparring.

"Someone was here?" Naruto asks, sniffing and smiling. Sakura forces a smile – she disapproves of them but she wants Naruto to be happy.

"No," Neji says shortly, and it is enough.

---

691 words

Feedback keeps us live and insane. (Please.)

Loko


	3. Silent Fall

Loko: And the third, in which, shockingly, a glimmer of a plot may be found. (Again: 30kisses!)

Disclaimer: Alas.

Summary: Neji thinks he might never see Sasuke again. Sasuke's predictable – in that he's not. SasuNeji, NaruNeji, implied NaruSasu

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Silent Fall

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Neji thinks he might never see Sasuke again after that misty predawn warning: they are even, more or less, a kiss for a kiss and a warning for a warning.

He forgets about the resourcefulness of the Uchiha clan and Sasuke's silent desperation.

He forgets, too, about the fact that he is an elite ninja, and thus entitled to the dubious honour of dealing with the best of the bad.

With all the forgetting he's been doing of late, he shouldn't have been surprised that he forgot to smile at Naruto for good luck before leaving, or that almost immediately after reaching their location the entire team was separated because they'd forgotten that they were under new configurations and hadn't standardised their signals yet, and he really shouldn't have forgotten that the entire reason they were pulling recon was because of the now-dusty trail of which he'd warned Sasuke.

And he really shouldn't have been surprised to come suddenly eye-to-eye with slowly swirling red eyes, a spinning wheel like Fate. Three distinct spokes of black, round and round and round: and there is a reason the Sharingan is the "Mirror-Wheel Eye."

On Sasuke's part, he sees only white.

They stare at each other for a moment, and then Sasuke says, "Hyuuga Neji."

Neji refuses to return the favour, refuses to take the other end of the long, long string of distance and back away. When he melts into his careful dancing stance, Sasuke copies him, and even Hyuuga Neji recognises the sliver of fear at the flawless mirroring trick and even Hyuuga Neji understands why Sharingan strikes such fear into the hearts of ninja.

He doesn't like the Sharingan, he realises, reaching into his soul and analysing his feelings. It's too much like thievery, the already unfair advantage of kekkei genkai moving further to steal secrets learned through years of hard work.

Then again, he remembers, the Sharingan itself takes years of hard work to master.

With a conscious decision, he straightens himself, and Sasuke imitates him, confusion darkening the crimson of his pupils.

"Sasuke," He says, and then stops, unsure of how to phrase things. If he were kinder, gentler, or maybe Hinata-sama, he might know what to say at this point – the buttons to press, the strings to pull to make Sasuke dance like a pretty rag doll and skip his way home.

Neji likes Sasuke wild and unbound, red and black and white like a painting made in ink and blood, and he spares a moment to wonder if it would make him happy (if it would make Sasuke happy) to put Sasuke back into Konoha, sweet candied cage that it is.

And then the moment is gone.

Ninja are not made to think.

Perhaps, Neji considers with a detached sort of amusement, that is why Naruto makes such an excellent ninja. (And then again, that is not fair – Naruto's instinct consistently proves itself stronger than many a wise man's intellect, Demon Fox and all.)

"Are you looking for me?" Sasuke asks, one blink and then snapping black where unreadable crimson was.

"No," Neji says honestly, because he really had forgotten.

"Why are you here?"

"Recon," Neji says, and watches Sasuke's face tighten: one debt. "One team, five of us, old trail. Mostly useless."

"Aren't you a little too elite for a useless mission?" Sasuke asks, perhaps snide and perhaps bitter. If he'd stayed, he'd have made the ranks of the elite along with Neji, and they both know it. As it is … As it is, Neji realises, he has no idea.

"I'm beginning to think it's a punishment for supporting Naruto," Neji says, shrugging eloquently. "That, or some bizarre way for Tsunade-sama to get back at the lot of us for decorating her office in pink crepe and whipped cream when Jiraiya-sama came to visit."

A brief, startled, almost-smile flickers across Sasuke's face as quickly as the brightness left by lightning.

"Indeed?" He asks, voice lifting just barely at the end, mouth twisting into a smirk rather than the smile promised moments ago. A faint light filters greenly through the canopy of the trees and catches his face, just barely, making it impossibly light against dark hair and clothes and forest.

And just like that Neji realises with a startled jolt that this, _this_ is Sasuke: creature of night and light and bitterness and sharp angles at the corners of a mouth that should have been soft by virtue of age, virtue of shape, virtue of colour, and is instead some sort of line with a harsh bracket at the corner shadowed darkly against his skin; _this _is Uchiha Sasuke of broken childhood and broken family and broken heart, and _this _is the boy that Naruto loves, all fury and wrath and revenge and such deep, deep black eyes, like a crevasse with no bottom. This is he; this is the one who stole Naruto before Neji even had a chance.

This, Neji realizes, the comprehension shafting as thinly through his mind as the light through the leaves, is a child whom Neji is beginning to understand. No, Neji thinks, searching a little deeper still, Neji _understands_ Uchiha Sasuke, although maybe Uchiha Sasuke might never understand Neji. Sasuke is in fact quite easy to understand. He is simple and transparent. And perhaps that is why Naruto does not understand Uchiha Sasuke – at least not on an intellectual level.

Naruto and Sasuke understand each other in some deeper shade of meaning, some universe where there exists only the two of them and only they know exactly what it is like. Neji has glimpsed that world, once or twice, in the glances he's seen those two share and in the way Naruto's blue eyes spark fury near the old Uchiha homes. And, he thinks, looking at Sasuke's frown, everything about Sasuke. _Everything_.

It is not a world Neji wants to share.

But he loves Naruto, in some bizarre sort of way – as much as Neji ever loves, as fiercely as Neji ever feels – and he supposes that he loves Sasuke, in an even more twisted manner. Something about kisses tasting not quite personal and the fact that they always meet amidst green trees, of forest or of the carefully tended Konohagakure land. Something they share, he supposes.

"Hyuuga," Sasuke says. "Is there something you were looking for? I can guarantee you won't find it. We've been long gone from this location. And," He adds, sounding more like a sulky child reciting Academy lessons than a deadly ninja with a creed, "Your search is unjustified. We of Sound wish merely to establish our own nation. No harm is meant to Konohagakure or any of the other Hidden Villages, unless harm is offered to us first."

"Neji," Neji says.

"If you wish to retaliate, however – what?" Sasuke says, halting in the middle of yet another practiced speech, voice shifting from bored to surprised. Sasuke is so transparent he could be hung in a frame and used as a window. And he is insubstantial enough, malnourished in appearance and not even so much wiry as starved.

"My name is Neji," Neji clarifies. "You may refer to the head of the Clan as Hyuuga, if you so wish. I am called Neji."

Sasuke's Sound – not Orochimaru's, Neji thinks in surprise, but Sasuke's; has that always been how he's thought of them? – has been evading everyone from the Konoha nin to the Akatsuki. It makes for little surprise that their members be a little mistreated. It shouldn't matter to Neji. Yet Sasuke is so _thin._

"Neji," Sasuke says as carefully as if the name will break if he utters it, and yet _something _breaks, though neither knows what it is, precisely.

"Your goal," Neji says. "Do you have a plan?"

Sasuke's face hardens. "Of course."

Wrong buttons, wrong switches.

"Konohagakure keeps close tabs on Akatsuki activity."

Sasuke's eyes narrow. "So I have heard."

Wrong words, wrong phrases.

"I am not doing this for your sake."

Sasuke stares.

"I am doing this for Naruto. And, I am beginning to think, myself."

Sasuke stares.

"Do you understand?"

Sasuke looks away, down and to the right and then back up. Neji no longer attempts to read meaning into these tiny motions – that rigmarole was half a charlatan's performance to begin with, anyway. "No. I don't understand you, Hyuuga Neji." Both names: a compromise, maybe.

"I don't require that you do," Neji says, because no-one really understands him in the end. Because no-one really understands the first thing about themselves in the end, let alone someone else. Sasuke is easy to forgive, he thinks a little wistfully, perhaps too easy to forgive. Beneath the pale, pale scowl and the black, black eyes it is perhaps too easy to see a child that once could have smiled and gotten away with the world and then some.

Neji hopes that others have more trouble reading Sasuke. It is too difficult to separate what Byakugan tells him and what his eyes see. (They do see, pupilless and all.)

A few minutes later, Neji hopes that the rest of the Konoha nin have an easier time predicting Sasuke's actions. It is too easy to forget that they are enemies under this watery emerald light, and the last thing he had expected was Sasuke moving forward, _closer_.

Sasuke's lips are chapped, dry, and his hair is unkempt and probably harbours countless leaves and twigs somewhere in its mass. His breath is hot and not entirely steady and his hands are as calloused and strong as ever, and Neji gives thanks to someone (anyone) for the small things that never change.

"I don't understand your motives, Hyuuga Neji," He breathes, cold words searing across Neji's mouth, almost into it. "Nor do I care. But _you _should."

There is that, there are Neji's nerves clamouring restlessly in his body, there are leaves rustling like an ocean of paper above their heads, there is Sasuke as predictably unpredictable as the path of a hurricane, there is this moment when Neji almost thinks Sasuke will kiss him again –

And then there is nothing, just trees and trees and trees and trees and Neji.

_Oh, the tables have turned, Hyuuga Neji, _he indulges his tendency toward melodrama later, _they have turned indeed._

He does, however, mention to Tsunade-sama that the Otonin are scattered and confused, and perhaps unworthy of pursuit until they can at least put up a decent fight. She threatens to ground him from S-classes for three months and even waves requests for cat-sitters and toilet-scrubbers in his face, but eventually capitulates to the truth of cold, hard evidence. (The rest of the team, he is amused to learn, had managed to successfully avoid contacting any Otonin at all – though whether that is a testament to the skills of Konoha or Oto is unclear.)

Turning up the heat on the Akatsuki, Neji figures, should give Sasuke a month to recuperate and another to wax furious over Konoha's treading on his turf.

And, this way, he can worry about _just _Naruto for a while.

Funny, though, how he still can't relax.

---

1857 words

Drop a line and we will drop a chapter. (Pretty please?)

Loko


	4. Silent Spring

Loko: Whee! More 30kisses SasuNeji. Well, okay, I was almost purged because it was so late, but it did slip in under the cutoff, I think. So. That is good.

Disclaimer: Still nope. Such woe.

Summary: Sasuke asks why. Neji has all the answers, and really Sasuke doesn't want to know. SasuNeji, NaruNeji, implied SasuNaru

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Silent Spring

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"This is ridiculous," Sasuke says finally, and stands. His muscles must be as sore as Neji's own, and the bluish bruise just above his collar is deepening to thunderstorm purple, yet his motions are smooth and swift and full of a clean, restrained power.

"Perhaps," Neji says, breaths suctioning in and out ferociously, like the oxygen is attempting to kill him instead of giving him life. "Why now?"

"Why ever?" Sasuke says, snagging his too-long bangs out of his eyes and shoving them behind his ears: harshly, angrily, as if he wants to hurt someone and can't quite reach, so turns on himself. Neji reaches out and puts a hand on Sasuke's foot (white skin on black sandals) and Sasuke's eyes, red moments ago, flash black at him. "Just think about it. This can't go on."

"What's so ridiculous about it?" Neji leans back very deliberately: white elbows (dusty and scraped and bleeding in places) resting against the deeply crevassed bark of the limb on which they are standing, dark hair pooling where his shoulder-blades press into the same bark. He can feel the ridges one by one, imprinting into his flesh like fingernails clawing bloody ownership between gasps in violet, velvet night.

"You," Sasuke snaps; gestures expansively in a motion meant to encompass Neji, the forest, the sky, the earth, himself in one swoop of pale, skinny adolescent arm. Neji pauses only sometimes to think when he is with Sasuke; mostly he lets himself react. It's cleaner, simpler, less complicated, and he suspects that if he did think, he would think much the same thing as Sasuke: _this is ridiculous_. "Me. This, all of it."

Neji raises an eyebrow.

"Don't give me that look," Sasuke growls, and against his will Neji notices the inadvertent proof of how much time they have spent together. He can't help but wonder: do he and Naruto even know each other's expressions this well? Or is it just that _Sasuke_ knows these things, blood-eyes taking catalogue without even conscious input from their owner? "Think about it, Hyuuga Neji."

Neji's mouth quirks. "Neji," He says patiently.

"That's exactly it," Sasuke says, tossing his hands out in what might be surrender or frustration or threat (ninja, after all) and glaring in a vaguely exasperated way at Neji. "Why do you call me Sasuke? Why should I call you Neji?"

"Those _are_ our names," Neji suggests, tilting his head very slightly and letting a few strands of his black hair slide from the crook of his neck to the tree.

"Don't be obtuse," Sasuke says, and sits with a graceless grace – too loud a motion for true ninja fluidity, and yet as smooth as the _swish_ of water over rocks, every strand of hair and flutter of cloth seeming to settle back perfectly. "What part of the word _enemies_ do you not comprehend?"

Neji's expression darkens, although his white eyes give away precious little. "I claimed truce, Sasuke."

"I never gave it," Sasuke returns. "Unless you surrendered."

Neji's eyes surrender for him forever, blinking white flags; and nothing he does surrenders, ever, flashing white hands.

"Tell me," He says finally. "Would you attack me like this?"

"No," Sasuke says firmly. "But that's what's ridiculous."

"Surely you don't suspect my motives, still?" Neji laughs, coldsharp and bitter as the wind turning winter around them. "I explained them to you in all their gory stupidity."

Sasuke frowns, dark eyebrows drawing together over dark eyes and lips almost laughably a pout, but when he turns his gaze back to Neji, the look is threateningly gloomy as a monsoon, heavy with the promise of bloodshed. There's nothing either of them can say in response. _Gory,_ Neji thinks with a bit of a self-deprecating smirk, _is about how to describe it._

"What would you do if the Hokage found out?" Sasuke says finally, and the lines of his body soften into half-relaxation. Neji reflects and realises: he has never, in fact, seen Sasuke fully relaxed, and imagines it must be enticing, that pale body stretched out and languorous against that deep blue cloth and shockingly black hair and eyes. And lips full and slightly parted, an invitation to kiss or ravish or bite. Something about the Uchiha and how they were bred, Neji remembers vaguely, initially an aesthetic clan or something. And the brilliant, violently red Sharingan a convenient accident, maybe.

The Uchiha _mon_ just that, after all: a rounded fan, useless in battle, gules spread perhaps an afterthought.

And Sasuke staring at him with those snapping black eyes, expectant, impatient.

"Hide behind Naruto," Neji says with an impertinent shrug. "Watch Naruto take on the Hokage in my honour, I suppose, and roll my eyes and say 'I told you so,' when he gets only the slightest of concessions."

Sasuke rolls _his_ eyes, puffing a few strands of hair out of his eyes. "And I suppose it will work?" He says, all caustic sarcasm, easy and familiar like this: backed against the green of trees (beginning to redden and gild themselves), too-thin face (beginning to fill out again) resigned, hands restless and uneasy against the bark, fiddling with leaves, hair, cloth. Neji suffers a moment of complete lapse, engrossed in the play of thin fingers twirling a single golden leaf and imagining _fingers against my scalp, jaw, lips_.

"If it doesn't," He says when Sasuke tosses the leaf at him, thoroughly irritated with the pause. The wind picks it up, spins it in dizzy circles hundreds of feet above the ground, and dies suddenly: a flicker of soft yellow vanishing toward the browngreencold earth. "I don't suppose I could come with you?"

"You could," Sasuke says, only somewhat serious. "That snake will take anyone he can, right now. You won't, will you?"

"No," Neji says shortly, and they pause for a moment of utter stillness: no wind, no leaves whispering and giggling amongst themselves, barely a hint of breath shared between them.

"Ah," Sasuke says finally, awkwardly. His right hand reaches for another leaf slowly turning down between them at the same time Neji does, and both flinch back but not quickly enough. They miss the leaf and clasp each other's hands with unexpectedly crushing strength.

"Why don't you trust us?" Neji says, at the same time Sasuke says, "Why do you trust me?"

"I believe in your word," Neji says, at the same time Sasuke says, "I don't trust anyone."

Sasuke tries to pull his hand back and Neji grasps it tighter, fine bones grinding within too-thin knuckles and palms pressed so tightly together they can feel suction. Sasuke digs his fingers into the back of Neji's hand, and they will both have bruises when they finally let go.

"You trust me," Neji says, leaning forward and breathing the words into Sasuke's face.

"I do not," Sasuke says, refusing to look away.

"You're letting me _train_ you," Neji says, moving closer still.

"You're a Hyuuga," Sasuke says. "And I need finer chakra control."

"Which Orochimaru cannot teach you," Neji says, and their hair mingles (black on black and indistinguishable as always) and then their foreheads touch, and Sasuke still refuses to look (move) away.

"Which Orochimaru cannot teach me," Sasuke confirms. "Hyuuga, I use you. Why do you let me?"

"I love Naruto," Neji says, and Sasuke flinches back at last, and the winter sun flashes dazzling white through the falling leaves and purifies the sky above, illuminating a leaf's breadth (a village's, a world's, a soul's) between them and their young, immaculate profiles. Sasuke frowns into the light and that is where the difference is, Neji realises, where Sasuke glares into the world against the brightness of the light and Neji lets himself be blinded.

"Then why are you here?" Sasuke says, pulling at his hand again, and Neji grips even tighter still, forcing Sasuke onto his back (and this would never happen, Neji thinks with a vaguely amused smirk, if Sasuke didn't genuinely want to know – under any other circumstance Sasuke would have had two kunai between Neji's ribs already) and digging the back of Sasuke's hand into the rough bark of the tree. "_Neji_," Sasuke hisses, sibilant on the 'e' and harsh on the 'i'.

"Because I love him," Neji says, and presses their lips together, and speaks against Sasuke's mouth (_into_ Sasuke's mouth). "And he -- "

Sasuke stretches his long curve of a neck (white in the late-autumn light) and angles his head up, closing that brief space, and there is no room for manoeuvring around Sasuke's lips and teeth and the blood smearing from their dry lips into the kiss, like kissing a pliant copper statue, and Sasuke's thin fingers are winding through Neji's hair and Neji wants to say _And he loves you_ or _And he loves me because of you_ or _Because of you_ or _And he loves you he loves you he loves you_ or mostly _And I love you_.

And the next day Sasuke is not there amidst the thick rain of dead leaves in the brownredgold forest, and Neji manhandles his way onto the Sound investigation.

_There is no escape now, _he thinks, and touches his lips still stinging and cut. _It is time, _he thinks, smiling apologetically at a furious stone-blue-summer-gold Naruto, _you understood that, too_.

---

words: 1547

Feedback will make the flowers grow. Or new chapters. Thanks for reading, and sorry this is late. uu;

Loko


	5. And Thus Conscience

Loko: Well, the long-awaited appearance of the one-and-only: Naruto. Only oddly quiet. And apologies for the wait!

Disclaimer: Owning Naruto? I fail it. Also, although this is probably too late, spoilers for Valley of the End and anything after. Also AU post-End, I guess.

Summary: _And thus conscience doth make cowards of us all._ Neji and Naruto, and Sasuke present in the silence. SasuNeji, NaruNeji, implied SasuNaru

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And Thus Conscience

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Naruto picks the coldest day of the winter to tackle the issue.

Neji thinks, for a few fleeting moments, that perhaps Naruto will let it go and chalk it up to Hiashi's increased confidence in his branch clan. But really he should have known better.

(Neji thinks, a little sourly, that the only thing that can be chalked up to Hiashi's increasing confidence is a vague ache in his left shoulder, a sort of strange Hyuuga healing: as if abusing it more will force a faster recovery. Neji's hair is grown back by now, though, and the pain lessens every day. He can't say the same thing for Naruto, who still flinches every time someone mentions Orochimaru – a frequent occurrence in this pre-war calm.)

Naruto picks the coldest day of winter, as he and Neji stroll by the near-frozen river, hands jammed into pockets and chins tucked into collars. When they stop on a bridge, Naruto leans against the railing and puffs out a breath, illusion-white.

"Why did you join the Oto investigation?" He asks, a propos of nothing.

Neji blinks, somewhat off his guard. "Why not?" He says finally.

"You're a chuunin," Naruto points out, one golden eyebrow up and one down, mouth a softer curl than a smirk and a little too tilted for a smile: an expression meaning _I'm trying to smile and be amused, but I'm too desperate to be convincing_. "You're kind of low-level to be on a blanket S-rank group."

(Tsunade-sama has blanketed Orochimaru and Oto as S-rank and, recognising her experience with the topic, the other decision-makers in the village have left it as such. The unusual blanket does not, however, prevent new nin who under normal circumstances would be eased into their ranks with As and Bs from being assigned to missions related to Oto. Simply put: Konoha no longer has sufficient forces to stage a war, and has not been preparing the way Sunagakure and Otogakure have been.)

"Do you doubt my skills?" Neji asks, sort of rhetorically. Naruto has first-hand experience with _not_ doubting Neji's skills: at least twice, now.

"Of course not," Naruto says too quickly, and sighs. There is soft, almost warm silence and then a shuffling of cloth as he turns around, brooding down at the river with eyes as dark as the winter-deep water.

"You want to know if there's anything about Sasuke," Neji says after the silence has turned frigid.

"Yeah," Naruto says, and looks abashed at his own lack of subtlety. "I mean, I made a promise, I have to keep it, it's -- "

"Your way of the ninja," Neji finishes, and smile and stands a little closer. Even in this gnawing cold Naruto is warm, eyes summer-blue and brighter and realer than the pale clean blue of the sky around them.

"Yeah," Naruto says. "So is there?"

"No," Neji lies easily. There isn't. Not on file, anyway. He thinks of Sasuke holed up in that snake's burrow, lighting candles for warmth and exchanging barbs with Kabuto. He almost laughs. _Kabuto has no idea what he has in store, _Neji thinks, _Physical projectile arts are the least of it_.

(Really, even Neji hasn't seen pale skin or dark hair or red eyes in a month, and he sometimes wonders if Oto goes into winter hibernation and laughs to himself.)

Naruto's face is as shuttered as a house against the wind whistling eerie and sharp around Konoha: Neji almost misses the Sand nin. They brought a little bit of desert warmth to Konoha hidden in green, a flashy gold against the muted forest. Naruto is a little sandy himself – looks more like he was raised on a beach than in the woods, all tan-dark and sun-blond and blue-eyed as enticing as the ocean cold on a hot day.

Neji thinks of water and wants to swim, suddenly, or wants to be flashing through the forest looking for Sasuke or almost anything, just not this awkward, slightly confused silence between them: Naruto who kissed Neji when he showed up at Neji's door and Neji who had blinked in surprise and had to think about the right response before kissing back.

Sasuke is different in that manner. Sasuke plays the aggressor, attacking first with red eyes and flying weaponry and _Chidori_ (Neji has never seen the assassination technique before, although he's heard of it, and he doesn't really want to see it: yes, his own trade is precision, but there is something off-putting about an attack designed specifically for a sudden death and thinking about Sasuke almost killing Naruto in the scream of a thousand birds), but in reality he waits behind a wall which ranges into a cold grey sky, and more often than not it is raining with _I hate you_ and _You disgust me_ and _How useless_. And he waits for one to climb or slip through or utterlyandcompletely destroy the wall and then looks up in surprise, face open and unguarded and too innocent too startled too kissable.

"If you learn anything," Naruto says, slowly, heavily – older. He's been as unsettling and gold-lit obnoxious as ever since Kakashi brought him back, broken, and Neji pities Hinata-sama, who thinks that Naruto is okay and is normal. _She will never have a chance, _he thinks, and means himself. Every cell of Naruto is devoted to one goal, one person, and he may have made the promise to Sakura but here is the truth: it is because, without Sasuke, Naruto cannot be who he is. And somewhere flickering in all that clear-sky blue is death-deep recognition.

"Of course," Neji lies, smooth as his face and opaque as his eyes.

_Naruto is chasing an illusion, _Neji thinks. Uchiha Sasuke of Konohagakure is long gone, replaced by this icier, glacial Sasuke-of-Sound. No, not even: Sasuke has gone beyond glacial to just short of the point where matter ceases to exist. And Neji may be melodramatic at times but there it is: nothing matters to Sasuke except Itachi, and he has forced his soul and perhaps everything that feels in him to this lightless desolate narrow place where even Hyuuga Neji is cold.

Naruto waves to Lee and Gai, wading across the subzero river and shivering and waving back (sparkling something about the springtime of youth: which is ridiculous because it is about as winter as winter gets), and Neji has an entirely inappropriate vision of Lee force-feeding Sasuke curry. He wonders if Lee (who has taken up the position of Naruto's official ramen-eating-buddy when Iruka-sensei is busy) has ever even talked to Sasuke outside of the chuunin exams.

He wouldn't be surprised if no-one but Team Seven had. He remembers Sasuke from the Academy (everyone does; difficult for perfectly straight lines of shuriken ranged perfectly along diagrams of human vitals to escape the notice of shinobi) but can't recall ever hearing his voice until Sasuke had calmly broken through the illusion at the entrance of the exams.

He remembers feeling something at the back of his neck: something that whispered _Watch him_ in more ways than one.

Naruto kicks a pebble into the water and is uncharacteristically quiet.

"What's the matter?" Neji asks, soft in the way he is when he is dangerous. He wishes he could tear the world down and present it to Naruto: _here it is, take out what you don't want,_ but Naruto's life is a paradox and more likely than not he would put the world back exactly the same: Kyuubi-Naruto, Orochimaru-Sasuke, the Konoha will of fire forced into unwilling bloom for a war for which it is woefully unprepared.

He thinks of Naruto and Sasuke, harsh hot sun on smothering velvet night, and something curls beneath his ribs and his body feels empty, drained of everything and light enough to flutter away with the lugubrious wind.

His hand tightens on the railings.

Naruto says, "Nothing!" and grins, and it is all wrong: all of it, and Neji has never been quite as sure of what he is going to do.

And what he wants to do is say _Hey, you know, I love you_ and _Hey, you know Sasuke – Sasuke has you wound into every fibre of his soul_ and _Hey, don't do this alone_ and _Hey, I can take you to the bastard right now_ and –

And, he has to admit, he sort of wants to say _Hey, you know, this is kind of weird and unorthodox and, okay, outright bizarre, I think I love you both. I think I love you both enough to die or explode or dissolve from it and sometimes it feels like I might do all three._

He thinks, almost amused, _I can never think of anything to say, and when I do I can't say it,_ and instead of saying anything he leans over and kisses Naruto's nose, sweet like nothing real (but reality) is, and doesn't think (of Sasuke last month: dark and pale and beautiful against the weak light of late autumn and hot crimson with anger, whatever Neji had said) at all.

Naruto laughs, staccato breaths puffing heavy against Konoha's trees and what might be the first snowflake of this dry cold season, and nothing is right.

---

1537 words

As always, a massive thank-you to all reviewers. You are what bring the chapters, after all. ;D

Loko


	6. Object Distance

Loko: Another chapter, this one with an even stronger attempt at plot, and longer! This is cause for celebration, yes? (Anou, moushi wake arimasen. It's late. D:)

Summary: There are moments when everything degenerates into the bizarre, and even Neji can't tell where reality is. SasuNeji, NaruNeji, implied NaruSasu

Disclaimer: Alas, not yet. Spoilers and AU for and from Valley of the End.

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Object Distance

---

Neji has overlooked Uchiha Sasuke before, but he thought he'd sworn never to do it again.

Nevertheless, it happens, in a way so patently bizarre Neji thinks that maybe Gai-sensei has switched his and Lee's drinks on Drunken-Fists night again.

As a matter of fact, it is so bizarre that it involves a grocery store.

It's odd enough that Neji is in a grocery store in the first place: really it's Naruto's fault – Naruto with Sakura (exhausted by Tsunade-sama and generally furious because of it) finally fed up with the row upon row of ramen, ramen, ramen in his cupboards, from instant to dry noodles with ingredients written on slips of paper next to them incongruously neat and orderly, and threatening his life and a pre-mortem castration if he didn't buy _real_ food.

Naruto had knocked on Neji's door at 11:00 at night with a piteous expression and pleaded, "Neji, I don't know what I'm supposed to buy. What the hell is 'real food' and where do I get it?"

Which is why Neji is standing next to Naruto and helping him pick out a cereal that is less than 80 sugar, in a shabby and questionable grocery store (shabby because the owner is an elderly man and hasn't had any kind of help for years; questionable because it is the only grocery store in Konoha that is open at almost-midnight), and trying and failing to explain why 'Ninjix! The Cereal for Young Ninja-in-Training!' isn't exactly appropriate for Naruto's age anymore.

Which is how Neji catches sight of black hair and pale skin and then laughs at himself for looking. Sasuke is miles away, he thinks, killing and maiming and generally being evil. Well, probably just training as furiously as ever and sniping in more ways than one at Orochimaru, Kabuto and whatever other unfortunate innocents have gotten themselves entangled with Oto, but Neji keeps his delusions because he has to fight Oto more often than not.

At any rate, Uchiha Sasuke is not in Konoha Plus!, critically eyeing the apricots.

And he certainly isn't a well-shaped, if rather slender, young woman. The dark hair is the same colour and the skin has the same papery, unreal Uchiha glow, but it's longer and tied into a sensible ponytail and the thin fingers have never been so gentle in their artless finesse. If anything, it's Uchiha Itachi in drag, not his younger brother.

Neji smirks a little, amused both by that mental image and by the fact that he has just essentially made _himself_ look, and turns back, in time to see Lee enter the store in a raucous clash of bells and a wave of fumes.

Fumes?

"Neji, my beloved team-mate!" Lee says, thoroughly inebriated and brandishing two plates of – ah. Fumes. "Naruto, my youthful friend!"

"The hell?" Naruto says, distracted from his conundrum of _Whole-Wheat Squares_ versus _Shiny Baked Triangles_: Neji takes a moment to wonder who the hell does the marketing in Konoha's companies before Lee unceremoniously shoves a plate of curry, pitch-black and lightly simmering, into his face.

"Lee," Neji says with all the patience of one whose eyes cannot make expressions and a team-mate who specialises in energy. "It's midnight. No one wants curry."

"It's Baa-san's _improved_ Curry of Life!" Lee announces, red cheeks a dead giveaway, and sways dramatically before snapping his spine back into order. "I tasted it and found it absolutely stimulating and thought it imperative that I share with my beloved fellow Konoha-nin!"

"Lee," Neji says again, in the firm-yet-gentle voice he's learned from Ten-Ten and about two steps away from the spine-shattering shaking he's also learned from her. "It is _not_ imperative that you share. We will be fine without it."

Naruto is edging away, the sneaky bastard. Neji opens his mouth to call him back, and realises that that is probably the worst idea he has had since he said _You must not stop here._

"Of course you must!" Lee says, and with the speed and unpredictability of his best Drunken Fists scoops a spoonful and deposits it into Neji's mouth.

Spontaneous Byakugan, unlike Sharingan which cannot be repressed, is rather embarrassing. There is the aesthetic aspect of it – bulging veins and shifting black focus points in white pupils – and then there is a sort of awkward lack of decorum in staring at chakra points in peacetime. And then there are the unwillingly heightened senses which begin to catch everything regardless of the user's wishes – for example, there are precisely 478 flies in this grocery store – and the reflexes which force the body to react to all stimuli, like the suppressed amused sound of the young lady down the aisle which makes Neji involuntarily whip around and stare.

And stare.

On second thought, though, Byakugan hasn't become a famous doujutsu for nothing.

Staring back at him through a watery film of genjutsu, eyes wide and startled and ten sorts of _ohshit_, is Uchiha Sasuke.

Even Byakugan cannot overcome Neji's shock and make him move. They stare at each other, frozen, and then Naruto pokes Neji's ribs and says, "Oi, Neji, are you okay?" and Sasuke's eyes snap to the right as if they've been avoiding that spot all night and Neji thinks _If it wasn't treason before, it is now_.

"Water," Neji croaks, and deliberately turns away, and thinks _Oh, yes, it is now,_ and wonders if it is entirely fair that he carry all the burden of it: concludes, _no_, Sasuke should pay at least a pittance, shouldn't he? Naruto beside him, holding a cup of water begged from the proprietor and choking down raucous laughter, is golden and azure and oddly beautiful, and Neji is abruptly furious – Sasuke hasn't the right, hasn't the power, _shouldn't_, does, it's not _fair _and Neji is _how _old?

Water soothes Byakugan but not his simmering rage, and Sasuke's stricken face smoothing perfectly into a fine-featured, almost-plain blank lack of recognition seals the deal with as much finality as if he had stretched his neck along the aisle, past the apricots and the peaches and the nectarines, and bitten Neji's neck (_tongue, _Neji thinks, and almost loses the edge of the anger for a moment).

"I apologise," He says to Sasuke's henge, and Naruto is startled at the unexpected address and if Sasuke's false face weren't naturally pale it would have whitened, judging by the flurries of chakra escaping from the illusion's tight seal. If Uzumaki Naruto doesn't recognise it from the tight tiny bundles of sparks, Kyuubi does: the boy shifts uneasily at Neji's left, without really noticing it himself. "For the disturbance."

"It's no problem," Sasuke's voice is light and sweet and Sasuke doesn't possess that tone, Neji wonders where Sasuke learned it or stole it – if Sasuke had to use Sharingan to learn to speak kindly. It would be in keeping with Sasuke, Neji thinks. "I apologise for my intrusion on your night."

And where, Neji wonders, did Sasuke steal the courtesy?

"Nah," Naruto says easily, although Neji can still sense in a vague behind-the-eyes tingle: Kyuubi's restlessness, a taut blood-orange whorl in Naruto's smooth blue chakra. "You'll have to forgive Neji. He's _high-strung_. The Hyuuga, you know."

But the quirk of the lip just before the soft face remembers to smile is Sasuke, all Sasuke, and Neji remembers almost the press of it against his own mouth, only on Sasuke's face it should have straightened out, angled down, become a frown from which the humour is harshly squeezed. "It's really no problem."

"Are you new in town?" Neji presses, stepping forward, amused by the way his faint grey-tan shadow envelops Sasuke's smaller female form, the way it makes Sasuke's false face pale and unreal and dead, because _that smile is not Sasuke_, and Neji won't have it. "I haven't seen you before."

"I," Sasuke hedges, smile faintly fainter and eyes a wide melting black – Naruto is a tense shot of nerves beside Neji for a moment and suddenly relaxes. Neji wonders briefly and discards the thought for the present.

"Don't be afraid of him, nee-san," Naruto is brightly obnoxious, reassuring in a bizarre way Neji can't comprehend intellectually but feels between his heart and his gut, relaxing of muscles even ninja don't know to use and a soft warmth as tightened flesh sparks, easing. "He's not even trying to scare you. If you're new in town, though -- "

"I was passing through and got hungry, so I thought I'd look for some food here."

'Her' face is unguarded pleasantness, and Neji wants desperately – feels it at his temples, his cheekbones, pressure building behind his eyes almost painful – to see Sasuke's features, to see if Sasuke is grimacing as he manages his illusion's reality, to learn whose expressions Sasuke has referenced to build this woman: slight and assured and gentle and confident and _tender_. Whose smile Sasuke could possibly have known so well as to copy with such artistic affection, accuracy; who was possibly kind to Sasuke in his youth.

Neji isn't jealous.

"Pfft," Naruto says. "This isn't _real_ food. -- sorry, ojii-san, I mean, you want hot food. Do you want me to show you a good place?"

"I," Sasuke says, hesitant. "I don't want to be a burden."

"Nah," Naruto says again, arms behind his head and blue eyes squinted into a smile, sunny and welcoming, and Neji feels the slick pull of Kyuubi's chakra threaded unnoticeably into Naruto's, slipping forward and nudging around Sasuke's genjutsu, nosing for hidden chakra, and the flavour of it makes Neji think that Byakugan wouldn't show threat, wouldn't show hunger – wouldn't show _that_ kind of hunger. Byakugan's influence has finally faded, then: it's that or that Sasuke's genjutsu has been righted, no longer leaking even the slightest sigh of telltale icy chakra. The pressure building behind Neji's eyes says the latter, slowly intensifying to a dull, hollow pain.

"You're going to take her to Ichiraku's," Neji says (it's not a question).

"Yes!" Lee enthuses. "We must all support each other in the springtime of our lives!"

"Right," Neji says, takes Lee's hand and puts it into Naruto's. (Lee's hand still feels fragile beneath his own: for a long time after Gaara Neji hadn't been able to spar properly with Lee, seeing in Byakugan-vivid greyscale crunched bone and pulped flesh, and Lee had never really understood why. Naruto is solid, warm, Neji doesn't want to let go. He thinks: _Dammit, Sasuke_.) "And Naruto will support you home."

"Ne_ji_," Naruto whines, eyes blue and irritated and underneath the smooth flow of his own chakra Kyuubi's snarling swirls, and Neji thinks about shredding that frail genjutsu into useless pieces and leaving Sasuke standing with a considering hand still hovering over the apricots (ripe and full and blushed peach) and – what that would accomplish, Neji knows, is not constructive in the least (destructive, really, of course: at any rate Konoha Plus! will require reimbursement from the elders), even if smoothing his palm flush along Sasuke's cheek and – even if it is tempting.

"And I will escort our visitor to Ichiraku's," Neji says. "And you can meet us there if you'd like."

"I really shouldn't," Sasuke says, nervous laugh, the elderly proprietor looks suspiciously at the lot of them. _Ninja_, the twist of his mouth says, and Neji wants to turn and say _Civilian_ with the tilt of his chin the way he used to say _Lee_, but Sasuke –

"I am a Hyuuga," Neji says. "I have no designs."

"I've heard of the clan," Sasuke says slowly.

Naruto heaves a theatrical sigh, grabs Lee's hand more firmly, and opens the door in a jangle of bells and a smattering of curses.

"Since Neji so obviously prefers your company to ours," He grumbles to Sasuke('s mother? father? _brother, no: _someone who smiled like that for him? Like he was brilliant and worthy and enough, and all he needed to be, and a little bit of – Neji wants Byakugan so badly it aches at the corners of his eyes, veins stiffening beneath the surface and forced to lie dormant – but he doesn't need Byakugan to think that _Sasuke _may have bled into that smile, because there is a tenseness to the woman's face that reeks of something like longing, yearning) and drags Lee into the night. "Neji! If I come to Ichiraku's and you're gone, I'll never forgive you."

The fade of Naruto's chakra (smooth blue edging around a corner and vanishing from immediate ken with general goodwill, and the fiery ripples punctuating the surface growling and reaching slightly backwards) leaves Neji and Sasuke standing facing each other down the fruit aisle and the proprietor growing impatient.

The domesticity of the action – and his own pride prickling under Sasuke's horribly pleasant eyes – irritates him, but he puts the abandoned shopping basket on the counter. He eyes the cereal lined in garish display near the register and remembers Naruto's unquestioning edginess and caves.

"A box of Ninjix," He sighs, thudding a box down next to the basket and adding a few more oranges for good measure. He supposes a sugar-saturated cereal for young ninja is poor substitution for a young Uchiha ninja bitter as fresh tealeaves, but it's the most he can do at present, with Sasuke still smiling like the silvery hint of a sun behind clouds and stubbornly refusing to move. "Ojii-san, if you could."

The air outside is bitter and nips Neji's nose and ears. Beside him, Sasuke's apprehensive step echoes quietly into the soft circles of lamplight they slide in and out of, almost avoiding the light from force of habit.

"What brings you to this part of the world?" Neji pointedly drops the polite _Miss_, shooting a sideways glance at the slender girl beside him and thanking Byakugan, not for the first time, for the white pupils that make it almost impossible to notice the direction of his gaze.

"I'm travelling, seeing the world," Sasuke's reply is glib and now that they are alone Neji can catch a hint of bitter humour below the lightness of that voice, something sultry and enticing beneath his sugar-coated smile. "I've heard so much about Konohagakure, so I thought I'd come and do a bit of sightseeing while I was in the area."

"I hadn't realised that Konoha was considered a tourist attraction," Neji comments. They've fallen into step, and Neji shifts his balance just so in order for his right foot to hit the ground at the exact same instant Sasuke's does.

Sasuke notices.

"You'd be surprised," He says, and calmly places his left foot onto the sidewalk in perfect time with Neji. Neji allows himself a brief smirk and wonders again: exactly _how old_ are we? "I suppose the real attraction is the ninja."

"I see," Neji says, and they turn down the street heading to Ichiraku. The proprietor – Neji's forgotten his name, Naruto's the one who does all the talking whenever they come to eat, anyway – is sweeping up, his daughter wiping down the counter and putting away bowls and chopsticks.

There is a moment of silence, and suddenly Sasuke is a sharp menace planted directly in front of Neji and the girl's face is frowning and furious; ghostly Byakugan-desire flickers painfully through Neji's forehead again, even though he can actually feel the snaps and slivers of blue-cool chakra leaking through tiny cracks in the genjutsu. It's a damn good thing cooking for ninja doesn't actually involve knowing anything about ninja techniques: Sasuke's stance and tightly clenched fingers and rapidly slipping hold on his chakra screams _intent_ to the unwatchful world.

"What are you playing, Hyuuga?" The illusion hasn't slipped far enough for him to lose the feminine swirl to his voice, but the low growl is an echo of Sasuke's normal voice, and Neji can hear the threat and anger soaking hotly through that infuriatingly sweet timbre. "We both know."

"Do you want me to call Naruto?" Neji says, voice pitched just low enough to avoid detection and sharp enough to show anger. Sasuke's flinch is sharp and Neji can feel himself start with it – but Sasuke relaxes, frowning as he consciously loosens his muscles and packs the escaping chakra back into the illusion. "What the hell are _you_ playing? You may have something to prove; that doesn't mean you sneak into a village that's almost branded you S-class under a genjutsu as flimsy as that one. You disappear for months only to reappear as a woman in Konoha Plus?"

He hadn't actually meant to say that last. Sasuke's eyes dodge his for a moment: lower right, indication of pain, Neji thinks in a exasperated, infuriated burst _I am never your enemy, let me – _

"I have business here," He says finally in his woman's voice. "Orochimaru's. And mine."

"What business?"

"Obviously I won't tell you," Sasuke snaps; not _can't_, _shouldn't_, but _won't_. Neji wants to shove Sasuke over to the right and against the wall and – wants something, Sasuke, breath, the smooth rush of skin beneath his fingers, anything.

"What will you do when Naruto comes back?"

"I'll be gone by then," Sasuke says. "This is ridiculous."

_Again._

"I won't let you go," Neji says, short and sweet and calm. Sasuke's stance takes on that tight timbre again, dark eyes narrowing.

"What do you want, Hyuuga?" (Neji's home turf, sort of; certainly Sasuke will be at a disadvantage in sheer numbers: ninja battles don't go unnoticed, even in a village of shinobi.)

"Come back," Neji begins, and Sasuke's growl tears out of his genjutsu-throat as if it hurts. Neji wants to put his fingers in the graceful dip just before Sasuke's collarbone and slide the absurd high collar out of the way. "No – I'm not finished. I don't mean to Konoha. I mean let me help you."

"I thought we settled that that was ridiculous," Same word again. "I'm not playing a game, and you're not my playmate."

"Death is never a game," Neji snaps and is annoyed when Sasuke's mouth twists into an ugly line; Sasuke is one of the few who tries his patience and strains his control, and the vague surfacing red hinting in Sasuke's glare makes him want to toss logic out some metaphorical window, break out Byakugan, beat Sasuke into a pulp and drag him home to lecture once he wakes up. He's not sure if he can beat Sasuke, though. Maybe a year and a half ago, when Sasuke was practically running delirious through the Chuunin exams, but – "I don't care if it's ridiculous. I know you're there when I search. Stop hiding. I'm not going to hurt you."

"I'm not afraid of that," Sasuke snorts, black momentarily dominant in his uncertain certainty, and Neji _wants_ to shove him up against the wall and bury his face into the faint smoke-forest-rain smell of him and never resurface. "I can't trust you." (Not _don't_.)

"You forget that you're at a disadvantage," Neji says. Sasuke's face is sharp angles again. "I am not asking, Uchiha Sasuke." (The name is deliberate, Neji likes it almost, a smooth flow across his tongue.) "You don't want to see Naruto, do you? Or should I say you don't want _Naruto_ to see _you_?"

"So it's blackmail." Sasuke's smirk is slightly off and Neji can't identify how.

"If it matters to you," Neji says offhandedly. Sasuke moves his head in some imperceptible way that makes his bangs shadow his eyes – the Konoha hita-eate once held them back, but Neji likes the sweep of black on white, sharp contrast and not at all Sasuke blue-grey and undefined.

There is a silence during which Ichiraku's clanging cleaning just beyond them seems blasphemy and the faint breath of wind around them seems obscene. Neji wants absolute silence. Sasuke is something that fades into night, dark hair and dark clothes and dark eyes, and some irrational part of Neji says _He will dissipate into the wind, he will never come back_ and the rest of Neji says _I will never let him go_. Neji wants absolute silence so he can _hear_ if Sasuke tries to leave.

Sasuke is so beautiful it hurts in his wild-eyed and pale-fired glory and Neji thinks, recognising his own melodrama: _Lost, Hyuuga Neji, there you go._

The pause stretches so thin Neji feels as if his heart is stretched with it, trembling and on the verge of collapse and Jyuuken doesn't hurt this much, not even when Hiashi makes full contact and Neji has to be rushed to the hospital for immediate disentangling of his chakra systems; his heart is thin, thinner, a fine string over an endless crevasse and breathless-empty-liquid-cold.

"Fine."

Sasuke's voice is thinner than Neji's voice, thinner than the silence and clawed rough with more pain than Neji can understand, but Neji is beginning and he refuses to stop.

"Good," He says, and prays that the breathless moment of _Oh god, oh god, yes, oh god, let me,_ doesn't flicker into his voice. "In a month, Sasuke."

He can't repress a clench in his throat as Sasuke vanishes.

(He dreams that night of that smile deeper and softer in black eyes, something of pain and smiling through it, and feels almost the press of the sweet curve against his throat, feels almost the pressure of a body beside his, wakes in the morning to icy sheets and frosted windows.)

It isn't until five days later, as he sweeps his father's memorial and watches Hinata-sama pile flowers on her ancestral stones, that something clicks in his mind and he realises _Oh,_ and _Sasuke,_ and _shit, he._

"Neji-nii-san?" Hinata-sama's startled cry is ignored as he shoots chakra to his feet and sprints, dredging his memories: _The Uchiha Clan finds its roots in Hyuuga, Neji. That is why their memorials are so close to ours. See, one of your forefathers here is rumoured to be the first to breed Sharingan._

He's running so fast he isn't bothering to avoid smaller twigs and branches in his way, and when he bursts into the freshly-cleaned Uchiha monuments Sasuke's face glancing up from where he is laying a single violet bloom on white marble (something sweet tracing through the air, where the hell did _Sasuke_ get _flowers?_) is startled and his black eyes are wide and pained and innocent, and fucking _hell,_ Neji thinks, Sasuke sweeps _how many_ graves every year?

It's probably gross disrespect to twist his hands into Sasuke's shirt and all but lift him bodily to slam him against another block of white marble and kiss him so hard he will probably have _Uchiha_ printed across his shoulders in the end, but that's oddly appropriate anyway and Neji doesn't care. Sasuke's mouth is salty and his hands are a startled grip on Neji's upper arms and his burning breath is relief, relieved.

---

words: 3795

Reviews are for ninja-lovings and under-rested authors mired in college applications? (Yes, that was pitifully desperate-sounding. XD;;)

Loko


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